Mpemba effect

Yesterday I mentioned the real phenomenon of ice droplets freezing from near boiling before hitting the ground if thrown up into really cold air.

Today, some videos of that happening along with the scientific explanation of the Mpemba Effect.

The above video is one of the prettiest I've ever seen of the effect, though there are others - after the jump - that explain the science better.

Ice Spiral Math

Let's be honest, we should all be more skeptical about videos that we see online.

Yes, there are some really cool videos online. Some of them are real, honest videos of things that actually happened.

Others, however, are bullpucky like the above video of a young woman supposedly pouring boiling water out of an electric kettle and the water freezing into a free-standing spiral before it hits the ground.

This is mocking - or maybe just playing off of a real effect in which boiling water - if thrown into ridiculously cold (like -30 F) air - can freeze before hitting the ground. It does require the water to be nearly aerosolized into really tiny droplets, drastically increasing the surface area allowing for much faster cooling...more on that tomorrow (ooh, a teaser!)

As I said, we should be skeptical. I don't know, however, that we all need to take that skepticism to such mathematical, analytical depths to publicly debunk such videos.

But thants, learnwithsherlock.

How Does the Space Cup Work?

We've seen how water in space behaves oddly - and sometimes problematically.

The space cup works with surface tension to keep the liquid in the cup and allow astronauts to drink from an open container rather than from a straw attached to a baggie of liquid.

If you want one, you can buy one for only about $750 - but you could probably print one more cheaply than that.